This invention relates in general to material transporting devices and in particular to a new and useful connecting elevator for operation with mining and similar units on benches of different levels.
In German No. OS 29 43 525, a connecting elevator for conveying or working units is described and shown, comprising a bridge by which at least two benches can be connected to each other and which is supported on both its ends and is equipped, at least at the upper bench, with a swivelling crawler or the like. The bridge rests by its upper end on the facing end of a belt bridge extending to both sides of the crawler and carried on a conveyor vehicle. The bridge may be supported on the conveyor vehicle, particularly through a universal joint, for pivoting about a vertical axis. At its lower end, the bridge is pivotable and lengthwise displaceable on a crawler and equipped with a crushing machine in the feed area, for crushing the supplied material. The bridge carries a steep conveyor including a belt and a cover belt. This connecting elevator must be equipped at its lower end with the heavy crusher, which requires a correspondingly heavy travelling undercarriage at the lower end of the bridge.
German No. OS 14 05 561 starts from inclined twosection elevators, such as haulage ways in mines, braking inclines, stationary cableways and other mechanisms equipped with hoisting vessels, such as cars, buckets, etc., which run on rails in reciprocating motion on ropes. Such mechanisms are firmly connected to the bedrock or ground and can be displaced from one location to the other only with difficulties, by means of special equipment. They can therefore be employed only to a limited extent.
German Pat. No. 306,908 discloses a method and device for conveying brown coal from open pit mines, and it is stated in the introduction that the inclined planes of the chain conveyor or the supporting columns and deflecting stations of the cableways are disturbing. The hoisting cars of this reference travel over a displaceable framework and one or more movable bridges connected thereto and extending up to the boundaries of the mine. The displaceable framework may be placed between two excavator paths, and advances with the worked coal face, in a manner known per se, as is done with excavator rails. German Pat. No. 309,385 discloses another development of the same method and device, wherein a displaceable single rail framework and a bridge extending up to the limit of the mine are provided at each end of the workings including one, two or even more adjacent excavator tracks or paths. The conveying cars travel on a containuous track over both structures and along the entire working way of the excavator. These mechanisms again have the drawback that even though one part, namely the framework for the conveyor vehicle, is displaceable, the other parts of the equipment are stationary and thus fixedly mounted.